2. Adriano
Chapter two
Adriano
Present day
They say time heals everything. I say time is a fucked-up bitch waiting patiently for moments of weakness to dredge up painful memories.
And fuck if I have any good ones left.
The only memory residing in my heart now is that of the massacre five years ago; my father staring blankly into the ceiling, his own blood pooling around him. My mother on his lap, blood trickling from between her eyes.
The scent comes back first. Iron-heavy. Hot. Thick enough to choke on. It’ll never leave me. It lives in my ribs, pressed against my lungs, reminding me that breathing is a privilege those men stole from my family.
My sibling was butchered right before our eyes, along with all my father’s men. Several of their limbs were scattered around the house.
I force myself to block out the details, because remembering the whole thing would rip me apart all over again.
I caught five bullets myself, bleeding out onto the Persian rug my mother loved.
The rug had been hers, carefully chosen by my father when she turned sixty.
She’d scolded anyone who wore shoes on it.
And there I was, bleeding all over it, turning something she cherished into a grave marker…
with her lifeless body a few feet from me.
And for what? Power? Wealth? Protection?
My jaw grinds mercilessly against my teeth as the entire scenario replays in my head, making my blood boil.
Hatred simmers best when left undisturbed. It sharpens… learns patience, which is why I’ve been waiting every day since that day.
I’ve been waiting for the moment I can make everything the Rossis have built come crashing down to rubble. And after that, I’ll take every person he cares about, tie them to four wild horses, and watch them get torn limb from limb.
I have no mercy to show, nor do I crave closure for what he did. I want him to feel loss the way it was handed to me—slowly, methodically, and without escape.
The Rossi job keeps me busy enough that I rarely allow myself to reflect. Tonight is an exception.
The guest bathroom gleams with obscene luxury as I step into it.
White marble floors, gold faucets, and polished mirrors.
My mother always said looking into a mirror at night brought bad luck.
I never used to believe in that stuff, but seeing as I’ll be needing a lot of luck today, I steer my eyes away from it.
Cupping some water under the faucet, I splash it over my face.
That bastard, Enzo Marcini, wants me to go around the world attending to the needs of his brat like a fucking errand boy. But perhaps, becoming her personal bodyguard could actually be a blessing in disguise.
Straightening slowly, I adjust my cuffs, slicking my stubborn strands back into position. Men like Enzo Marcini and his then-boss, Dean Rossi, deserve a gruesome death and an eternity in hell. Thankfully, the big Rossi has already landed there.
Every movement I make is controlled and deliberate, as appearance matters in a house built on paranoia.
I’ve spent the last four years strategizing on how to repay Enzo for what he and Dean Rossi—my father’s fucking friend—did to my father. That’s when I decided to take the bull by the horns, opting to become a member of the Rossi Mafia.
I figured infiltration is quieter than revenge fantasies. It requires restraint, which most men, including the almighty Enzo, could never figure out.
That restraint is what’s kept me alive, what’s kept him ignorant. The clueless, conspiring bastard. Now that the motherfucker trusts me for taking a bullet for him, I’ve climbed up the Rossi Mafia ladder quickly in the four years that I’ve been here.
As planned, I’m now close enough to hear everything valuable and see weaknesses that I could work to my own advantage.
But then she came along.
My hands slip into my hair again, pushing back into place the rebellious strand. Her existence is a disruption I never accounted for, a variable that refuses to stay in line.
Elena Rossi hadn’t been a fixation; she’d simply been an angle of possibility. Since Enzo loves her blindly, I figured it’d be to my advantage to include her in my playbook of… leverage. And I’ve been keeping an eye on her since I found my way into Enzo’s security from a low-level guard.
The day she arrived at the mansion, Enzo sent me and some of the men on a covert operation abroad. All I knew before I left was that the unmarried twin daughter of Dean Rossi was returning to the Rossi mansion because of death threats.
Enzo had tapped Elena’s phone, found out she wanted to attend the masquerade party alone, and had guards secretly tail her for protection the moment she snuck out. But I’d already overheard all the details I needed.
I knew there were many things to make the Rossi Mafia crumble, but fucking Elena Rossi that night at the masquerade wasn’t part of the plan. And, damn, just thinking about those blue eyes and soft curves causes a sharp jolt from my dick.
I’d gone there, under the mask of anonymity, to surveil her—to assess her value in real time, how or if she could be useful in my plans now that she’s in Manhattan. After all, when you're planning a revenge mission like mine, you can leave no stone unturned.
Instead, I’d gotten carried away and fucked her till she writhed in pleasure. The pictures on social media don’t do justice to how ethereal she looks in real life. A fucking goddess with a body carved to breathtaking perfection.
And then, when I saw her that night—the night of the attack—outside the studio, I instantly knew it was her; the same woman who had distracted me from my plan.
I’d been watching her. Studying her itinerary, behaviors…
interests. But for some stupid reason, I couldn’t hold back when I saw her deadbeat guards fall limply to the floor.
It pisses me off. The way desire ignores logic, the way my body betrays the mission. I shouldn’t have fucked her in the first place. I shouldn’t have intervened in the attack either.
I shake my head when someone knocks on the door of the room I’m staying in now since my new status as Elena’s bodyguard. The title tastes bitter on my tongue, and I bet it’s no different for her.
After her unsuccessful protests to Enzo the night of the attack, she’d looked at me long and hard before she turned around and stomped off to her room. Instantly, I knew this particular mission was destined to be long and painful.
The knock comes again, but I don’t answer the door immediately. I already know it’s fucking Elena. Her room is directly opposite mine. When she switches to banging on the door, I indulge her.
Sharp blue eyes stare back at me, assessing me with a sassy gaze. My fingers itch to slam the door in her face.
“What do you want?” I deadpan, eyes narrowing as she strolls in and takes a seat, crossing her legs casually over each other.
The action irks me, and I try to decide if this is who she is or if she just wants to spite me.
“I have an event in thirty minutes, I’d get dressed if I were you.” She yawns, then drags her palm across the desk.
And she continues, “You know”—she sucks her teeth—“I wonder if you knew who I was at the gala.”
I already know where this is heading. Enzo had asked about my presence at the time of her attack, but I dismissed it as a coincidence, and the fucker was grateful…after which he asked for the description of the attackers.
“Don’t think too highly of yourself.”
Her lips twist into a scowl as she tugs the top drawer open as if searching for something. She stands up and slams the drawer shut. I frown when her 5’6” frame stops right in front of me.
“Don’t you dare have any second thoughts about what happened that night,” she hisses.
Get out. Those words are on the tip of my tongue, but I simply hold them back as she waltzes out. Restraint, I tell myself.
Releasing an irritated grunt, I step into the hallway outside my room to assume my post.
I can almost taste her irritation through the door. Women like her aren’t made for cages, even gilded ones. Enzo underestimates her because his fatherly love for her blinds him.
That will be his downfall.
The door to her room opens minutes later, and she steps into the hallway, wrapped in a black two-piece that hugs her curves. Her eyes lift and lock onto mine with a certain look that I can’t quite figure out yet.
“Do you always stand this close?” she asks, voice edged with irritation, “or are you eager to please on your first day at work?”
Her pulse jumps beneath her pale skin. I notice things most men miss.
“My job is to ensure you’re safe.” I keep my voice flat.
“Figures,” she huffs, then begins walking at a faster pace so that she’s a few feet ahead of me.
Choosing to let her be a brat, I slow my steps behind her. I don’t know why I fucked her, but that can’t happen again, especially if I want to keep my head in the game.
When she reaches the edge of the stairs, she suddenly stops and whirls around, eyes narrowing into a squint.
“Are you looking at my ass?”
The question hits me with such force that I stop. She stares at me with the same look from earlier, and it’s only then that I realize what she’s doing. She’s trying to implicate me…get a reaction out of me so that she can tender it to Enzo as reason enough to dismiss me from being her guard.
According to social media constructs, she’s many things. Standoffish, hardworking, beneficiary of nepotism. Apparently, now she’s a cunning brat, too.
But of course, two can play that game.
I flick a bored gaze to her and say dryly, “There’s not much there to look at.”
She reddens, surprisingly, then quickly turns and speeds down the stairs, almost spraining her ankle.
I inhale sharply.
Elena Rossi is no longer an abstract weakness. She is flesh and bone, a mix of wits and resilience. And Enzo has handed her to me without hesitation.
If she pushes me, questions me, resents me, I can work with that. Conflict opens doors that secrets keep shut. But if she ever learns the truth, if she ever puts together the fragments of who I am and who her family destroyed…
Her world would burn faster than she could scream.
That reckoning doesn’t belong to rage; it belongs to precision.
And precision, unlike rage, never misses.